Sri Lanka's ancient architectural tradition is well portrayed at Sigiriya, the best preserved city centre in Asia from the first millennium, with its combination of buildings and gardens with their trees, pathways, water gardens, the fusion of symmetrical and asymmetrical elements, use of varying levels and of axial and radial planning. Sophisticated city planning was at the heart of Sigiriya, this royal citadel of ancient fame from the days of Sri Lanka's memorable past.
The Story of Sigiriya
Sigiriya was no mere fortress, gloomy and forbidding. At the brief height of its glory-it was a royal citadel for more than 18 years, from 477 to 495 A.D. and one of the loveliest that have graced this land.
There are many interpretations of the Sigiriya period, history replete with legend, love and betrayal. But one story remains, the story of Kaspaya (477-495 A.D.) its creator, King with an artist's soul. Bards have written about him and plays and film have tired to capture his personality.
Kasyapa left Anuradhapura and built for himself at Sigiriya, a palace and city modelled on the mythical abode of "Kuvera" God of Wealth. He gave form to his dreams of grandeur. Eighteen years later, his half-brother Moggallan challenged him with an army. By one of those momentary mistake of judgement that changes the course of history. Kasyapa thought he was alone in battle, raised his dagger and slew himself.
In a sheltered pocket on the western face of the Sigiriya rock, approached by a spiral stairway, are the famous frescoes. Epigraphical evidenced refers to the existence of 500 such portraits, but only 19 remain today.
On the western and northern sides of the steep rock face runs a gallery or pathway which provides access to the seemingly inaccessible summit. Shielding this pathway is a 9 1/2 ft. plaster wall, so highly polished, that even today, after fifteen centuries of exposure to sun, wind and rain, one can see one's reflection in it. Hence the name "Mirror Wall".
On the polished surface are the Sigiri Graffit recorded by processions of visitors to the rock in the past.
The summit of the rock is nearly three acres in extent. The outer wall of the palace which is the main building was constructed on the very brink of the precipice. There were gardens, cisterns and ponds laid out attractively.
The pleasure garden of the western side of the rock is studded with ponds, islets, promenades and pavilions. Some underground and surface drainage systems have been discovered during excavations. The wall abutting the moat encircling the fortress is one of the most arresting features.
The History of Sigiriya
Sigiriya dates back from over 7,000 years ago, through Pre-Historic to Proto-Historic to Early Historic times, then as a rock-shelter mountain monastery from about the 3rd century BC, with caves prepared and donated by devotees to the sangha.The garden city and the palace was built by king Kasyapa 477 - 495 AD. Then after king Kasyapa's death it was a Buddhist monastery complex upto about the 14th century.The Mahavamsa, the ancient historical record of Sri Lanka, describes King Kasyapa as a parricide, who murdered his father King Dhatusena by walling him up alive and then usurping the throne which rightfully belonged to his brother Mogallana. To escape from the armies of Mogallana, Kasyapa is said to have built his palace on the summit of Sigiriya, but Mogallana finally managed to get to Kasyapa and he committed suicide.
However, there is also another version of the Kasyapa story, related by one of the most eminent historians of Sri Lanka, Prof. Senerat Paranavitana. He claims to have deciphered the story of Sigiry, written by a monk named Ananda in the 15th cent. AD. This work had been inscribed on stone slabs, over which later inscriptions had been written. Till to date no other epigraphist has made a serious attempt to read the interlinear inscriptions.The two conflicting versions have been the basis for the historical novel 'Kat Bitha' by daya dissanayake, published in 1998.
Sigiriya is also the location for Arthur C Clerks ‘Fountains of Paradise’.
The Sigiri Gardens |
GARDENS IN THE WESTERN PRECINCTThe gateway to the western precinct lies across the inner moat. It had an elaborate gate-house made of timber and brick with a tiled roof. The moat is perfectly aligned with a mountain peak in the distanceOnly the southern side of the garden has been excavated, leaving the identical northern half for the archaeologist of the future. In the entire Sigiri-Bim, over 200 village tanks and rural sites have been investigated. The water gardens of the western precinct are symmetrically planned, while the boulder garden at a higher level is asymmetrically planned. The water garden displays one of the worlds most sophisticated hydraulic technologies, dating from the Early Historic Period. This shows an interconnection of macro- and micro-hydraulics to provide for domestic horticultural and agricultural needs, surface drainage and erosion control, ornamental and recreational water courses and retaining structures and also cooling systems. The Macro system consisted of the Sigiri Maha weva, the manmade lake with a 12 km dam, running south from the base of the rock, a series of moats, two on the west and one on the east fed from the lake. At micro level are, the water control and the water retaining systems at the summit of the rock and at various levels with horizontal and vertical drains cut in to the rock and underground conduits made of cylindrical terracotta pipes. WATER GARDENS The largest water garden has a central island surrounded by water and linked to the main precinct by cardinally-oriented causways. This was created 5 centuries before those at Angkor in Cambodia or Mughal gardens in India. The central island would have been occupied by a large pavilion. The water is in four L-shaped pools, connected by underground water conduits at varying depths, to provide different water levels. The pool on the south-west, is divided into a large bathing pool, with a corbelled tunnel and steps leading down into it. The other pool is smaller with a central boulder on which was a brick-built pavilion. The fountain garden is a narrow precinct on two levels. Western half has two long and deep pools, with shallow serpentine streams draining into the pools. These had been paved with marble slabs. These streams display the fountains, which have been made from circular limestone plates with symmetrical perforations, which are fed by underground water conduits and operate by gravity and pressure. There are two shallow limestone cisterns which would have served as storage and pressure chambers for the fountains. These fountains are still active during the rainy season from November to January. On either side of the fountains are four large moated islands , oriented north-south, cutting across the central axis of the water garden. This too shows the symmetrical repetition. The flattened surfaces of the islands were meant for the Summer Palaces or ‘water pavilions’. Access to the pavilions were across bridges cut into the surface rock. The Octagonal pond is at a point where the water garden and the boulder garden meet, a still higher level from the rest of the water garden. It is at the base of a towering boulder. There is a raised podium and a drip ledge, which would have formed the bathing pavilion . The pond is surrounded by a wide terrace also octagonal. BOULDER GARDEN -The boulder garden at a higher level from the symmetrical water garden is a totally different organic or asymmetrical concept, with winding pathways, natural boulders. Almost every rock and boulder in this garden must have had a building of brick and timber. It also has the Cistern Rock which has a large cistern made of huge slabs of granite. There is also the Audience Hall rock, with a 5 metre long throne carved out of the rockThe entrance to the inner citadel (15 hectares) is made of a massive brick and stone wall, which forms a dramatic backdrop to the water garden and to the rock and the palace on the summit towards the east of it. The wall runs from the Octagonal pond to the bastion on the south-east, which is formed of wide brick walls linking a series of boulders surrounding a cave pavilion with a rock-cut throne.  TERRACE GARDEN -The Terrace Garden at the base of the rock is fashioned out of the natural hill , made with rubbled retaining walls, each terrace running in a concentric circle around the rock, each rising above the other.The Palace garden on the summit was the domestic garden with its terraces and rock cut |
